Hence the careful investigation into such obstacles to cure is so much
the more necessary in the case of patients affected by chronic diseases, as their diseases
are usually aggravated by such noxious influences and other disease-causing errors in the
diet and regimen, which often pass unnoticed.1

1 Coffee; fine Chinese and other herb teas; beer prepared with
medicinal vegetable substances unsuitable for the patient's state; so-called fine liquors
made with medicinal spices; all kinds of punch; spiced chocolate; odorous waters and
perfumes of many kinds; strong-scented flowers in the apartment; tooth powders and
essences and perfumed sachets compounded of drugs; highly spiced dishes and sauces; spiced
cakes and ices; crude medicinal vegetables for soups; dishes of herbs, roots and stalks of
plants possessing medicinal qualities; old cheese, and meats that are in a state of
decomposition, or that passes medicinal properties (as the flesh and fat of pork, ducks
and geese, or veal that is too young and sour viands), ought just as certainly to be kept
from patients as they should avoid all excesses in food, and in the use of sugar and salt,
as also spirituous drinks, heated rooms, woollen clothing next the skin, a sedentary life
in close apartments, or the frequent indulgence in mere passive exercise (such as riding,
driving or swinging), prolonged suckling, taking a long siesta in a recumbent posture in
bed, sitting up long at night, uncleanliness, unnatural debauchery, enervation by reading
obscene books, subjects of anger, grief or vexation, a passion for play, over-exertion of
the mind or body, especially after meals, dwelling in marshy districts, damp rooms,
penurious living, etc. All these things must be as far as possible avoided or removed, in
order that the cure may not be obstructed or rendered impossible. Some of my disciples
seem needlessly to increase the difficulties of the patient's dietary by forbidding the
use of many more, tolerably indifferent things, which is not to be commended.

Hence the careful investigation into such obstacles to cure is so much
the more necessary in the case of patients affected by chronic diseases, as their diseases
are usually aggravated by such noxious influences and other disease-causing errors in the
diet and regimen, which often pass unnoticed.1

1 Coffee; fine Chinese and other herb teas; beer prepared with
medicinal vegetable substances unsuitable for the patient's state; so-called fine liquors
made with medicinal spices; all kinds of punch; spiced chocolate; odorous waters and
perfumes of many kinds; strong-scented flowers in the apartment; tooth powders and
essences and perfumed sachets compounded of drugs; highly spiced dishes and sauces; spiced
cakes and ices; crude medicinal vegetables for soups; dishes of herbs, roots and stalks of
plants possessing medicinal qualities; asparagus with long green tips, hops, and all
vegetables possessing medicinal properties, celery, onions; old cheese, and meats that are
in a state of decomposition, or that passes medicinal properties (as the flesh and fat of
pork, ducks and geese, or veal that is too young and sour viands), ought just as certainly
to be kept from patients as they should avoid all excesses in food, and in the use of
sugar and salt, as also spirituous drinks, undiluted with water, heated rooms, woollen
clothing next the skin, a sedentary life in close apartments, or the frequent indulgence
in mere passive exercise (such as riding, driving or swinging), prolonged suckling, taking
a long siesta in a recumbent posture in bed, sitting up long at night, uncleanliness,
unnatural debauchery, enervation by reading obscene books, reading while lying down,
Onanism or imperfect or suppressed intercourse in order to prevent conception, subjects of
anger, grief or vexation, a passion for play, over-exertion of the mind or body,
especially after meals, dwelling in marshy districts, damp rooms, penurious living, etc.
All these things must be as far as possible avoided or removed, in order that the cure may
not be obstructed or rendered impossible. Some of my disciples seem needlessly to increase
the difficulties of the patient's dietary by forbidding the use of many more, tolerably
indifferent things, which is not to be commended.

The most appropriate regimen during the employment of medicine in
chronic diseases consists in the removal of such obstacles to recovery, and in supplying
where necessary the reverse: innocent moral and intellectual recreation, active exercise
in the open air in almost all kinds of weather (daily walks, slight manual labor),
suitable, nutritious, unmedicinal food and drink, etc.

In acute diseases, on the other hand - except in cases of mental
alienation - the subtle, unerring internal sense of the awakened life-preserving faculty
determines so clearly and precisely, that the physician only requires to counsel the
friends and attendants to put no obstacles in the way of this voice of nature by refusing
anything the patient urgently desires in the way of food, or by trying to persuade him to
partake of anything injurious.

The desire of the patient affected by an acute disease with regard
to food and drink is certainly chiefly for things that give palliative relief: they are,
however, not strictly speaking of a medicinal character, and merely supply a sort of want.
The slight hindrances that the gratification of this desire, within moderate bounds, could
oppose to the radical removal of the disease1 will be amply
counteracted and overcome by the power of the homoeopathically suited medicine and the
vital force set free by it, as also by the refreshment that follows from taking what has
been so ardently longed for. In like manner, in acute diseases the temperature of the room
and the heat or coolness of the bed-coverings must also be arranged entirely in conformity
with the patients' wish. He must be kept free from all over-exertion of mind and exciting
emotions.

1

This is, however, rare. Thus, for instance, in pure
inflammatory diseases, where aconite is so indispensable, whose action would be destroyed
by partaking of vegetable acids, the desire of the patient is almost always for pure cold
water only.

The true physician must be provided with genuine medicines of
unimpaired strength, so that he may be able to rely upon their therapeutic powers; he must
be able, himself, to judge of their genuineness.

It should be a matter of conscience with him to be thoroughly convinced
in every case that the patient always takes the right medicine and therefore he must give
the patient the correctly chosen medicine prepared, moreover, by himself.

Substances belonging to the animal and vegetable kingdoms possess
their medicinal qualities most perfectly in their raw state.1

1 All crude animal and vegetable substances have a greater or
less amount of medicinal power, and are capable of altering man's health, each in its own
peculiar way. Those plants and animals used by the most enlightened nations as food have
this advantage over all others, that they contain a larger amount of nutritious
constituents; and they differ from the others in this that their medicinal powers in their
raw state are either not very great in themselves, or are diminished by the culinary
processes they are subjected to in cooking for domestic use, by the expression of the
pernicious juice (like the cassava root of South America), by fermentation (of the
rye-flour in the dough for making bread, sour-crout prepared without vinegar and pickled
gherkins), by smoking and by the action of heat (in boiling, stewing, toasting, roasting,
baking), whereby the medicinal parts of many of these substances are in part destroyed and
dissipated. By the addition of salt (pickling) and vinegar (sauces, salads) animal and
vegetable substances certainly lose much of their injurious medicinal qualities, but other
disadvantages result from these additions.

But even those plants that possess most medicinal power lose that in
part or completely by such processes. By perfect desiccation all the roots of the various
kinds of iris, of the horseradish, of the different species or arum and the peonies lose
almost all their medicinal virtue. The juice of the most virulent plants often becomes
inert, pitch-like mass, from the heat employed in preparing the ordinary extracts. By
merely standing a long time, the expressed juice of the most deadly plants becomes quite
powerless; even at moderate atmospheric temperature it rapidly takes on the vinous
fermentation (and thereby loses much of its medicinal power), and immediately thereafter
the acetous and putrid fermentation, whereby it is deprived of all peculiar medicinal
properties; the fecula that is then deposited, if well washed, is quite innocuous, like
ordinary starch. By the transudation that takes place when a number of green plants are
laid one above the other, the greatest part of their medicinal properties is lost.

We gain possession of the powers of indigenous plants and of such
as may be had in a fresh state in the most complete and certain manner by mixing their
freshly expressed juice immediately with equal parts of spirits of wine of a strength
sufficient to burn in a lamp. After this has stood a day and a night in a close stoppered
bottle and deposited the fibrinous and albuminous matters, the clear superincumbent fluid
is then to be decanted off for medicinal use.1 All fermentation of
the vegetable juice will be at once checked by the spirits of wine mixed with it and
rendered impossible for the future, and the entire medicinal power of the vegetable juice
is thus retained (perfect and uninjured) for ever by keeping the preparation in
well-corked bottles and excluded from the sun's light.2

1 Buchholz (Taschenb. f. Scheidek. u. Apoth. a. d. J., 1815,
Weimar, Abth. I, vi) assures his readers (and his reviewer in the Leipziger
Literaturzeitung, 1816, No. 82, does not contradict him) that for this excellent mode of
operating medicines we have to thank the campaign in Russia, whence it was (in 1812)
imported into Germany. According to the noble practice of many Germans to be unjust
towards their own countrymen, he conceals the fact that this discovery and those
directions, which he quotes in my very words from the first edition of the Organon of
Rational Medicine, § 230 and note, proceed from me, and that I first published them to
the world two years before the Russian campaign (the Organon appeared in 1810). Some folks
would rather assign the origin of a discovery to the deserts of Asia than to a German to
whom the honor belongs. O tempora! O mores!

Alcohol has certainly been sometimes before this used for mixing with
vegetable juices, e.g., to preserve them some time before making extracts of them, but
never with the view of administering them in this form.

2

Although equal parts of alcohol and freshly expressed juice
are usually the most suitable proportion for affecting the deposition of the fibrinous and
albuminous matters, yet for plants that contain much thick mucus (e.g. Symphytum
officinale, Viola tricolor, etc.), or an excess of albumen (e.g., Aethusa cynapium,
Solanum nigrum, etc.), a double proportion of alcohol is generally required for this
object. Plants that are very deficient in juice, as Oleander, Buxus, Taxus, Ledum, Sabina,
etc., must first be pounded up alone into a moist, fine mass and the stirred up with a
double quantity of alcohol, in order that the juice may combine with it, and being thus
extracted by the alcohol, may be pressed out; these latter may also when dried be brought
with milk-sugar to the millionfold trituration, and then be further diluted and potentized
(v. § 271)

The other exotic plants, barks, seeds and roots that cannot be
obtained in the fresh state the sensible practitioner will never take in the pulverized
form on trust, but will first convince himself of their genuineness in their crude, entire
state before making any employment of them.1

1 In order to preserve them in the form of powder, a precaution
is requisite that has hitherto been usually neglected by druggists, and hence powders,
even of well-dried animal and vegetable substances could not be preserved uninjured even
in well-corked bottles. The entire crude vegetable substances, though perfectly dry, yet
contain, as an indispensable condition of the cohesion of their texture, a certain
quantity of moisture, which dose not indeed prevent the unpulverized drug from remaining
in as dry a state as is requisite to preserve it from corruption, but which is quite too
much for the finely pulverized state. The animal or vegetable substance which in its
entire state was perfectly dry, furnishes, therefore, when finely pulverized, a somewhat
moist powder, which without rapidly becoming spoilt and mouldy, can yet not be preserved
in corked bottles if not previously freed from this superfluous moisture. This is the best
effected by spreading out the powder in a flat tin saucer with a raised edge, which floats
in a vessel full of boiling water (i.e. a water-bath), and, by means of stirring it about,
drying it to such a degree that all the small atoms of it (no longer stick together in
lumps, but) like dry, fine sand, are easily separated from each other, and are readily
converted into dust. In this dry state the fine powders may be kept forever uninjured in
well-corked and sealed bottles, in all their original complete medicinal power, without
ever being injured by mites or mould; and they are best preserved when the bottles are
kept protected from the daylight (in covered boxes, chests, cases). If not shut up in
air-tight vessels, and not preserved from the access of the light of the sun and day, all
animal and vegetable substances in time gradually lose their medicinal power more and
more, even in the entire state, but still more in the form of powder.

The homoeopathic system of medicine develops for its use, to a hitherto
unheard-of degree, the spirit-like medicinal powers of the crude substances by means of a
process peculiar to it and which has hitherto never been tried, whereby only they all
become penetratingly efficacious1 and remedial, even those that in
the crude state give no evidence of the slightest medicinal power on the human body.

The homoeopathic system of medicine develops for its special use, to a
hitherto unheard-of degree, the inner medicinal powers of the crude substances by means of
a process peculiar to it and which has hitherto never been tried, whereby only they all
become immeasurably and penetratingly efficacious1 and remedial,
even those that in the crude state give no evidence of the slightest medicinal power on
the human body.

This remarkable change in the qualities of natural bodies develops the
latent, hitherto unperceived, as if slumbering2 hidden, dynamic (§
11) powers which influence the life principle, change the well-being of animal life.3 This is effected by mechanical action upon their smallest particles by
means of rubbing and shaking and through the addition of an indifferent substance, dry of
fluid, are separated from each other. This process is called dynamizing, potentizing
(development of medicinal power) and the products are dynamizations4
or potencies in different degrees.

1

Long before this discovery of mine, experience had taught
several changes which could be brought about in different natural substances by means of
friction, for instance, warmth, heat, fire, development of odor in odorless bodies,
magnetization of steel, and so forth. But all these properties produced by friction were
related only to physical and inanimate things, whereas it is a law of nature according to
which physiological and pathogenic changes take place in the body's condition by means of
forces capable of changing the crude material of drugs, even in such as had never shown
any medicinal properties. This is brought about by trituration and succussion, but under
the condition of employing an indifferent vehicle in certain proportions. this wonderful
physical and especially physiological and pathogenic law of nature had not been discovered
before my time. No wonder then, that the present students of nature and physicians (so for
unknowing) cannot have faith in the magical curative powers of the minute doses of
medicines prepared according to homoeopathic rules (dynamized).

2

The same thing is seen in a bar of iron and steel where a
slumbering trace of latent magnetic force cannot but be recognized in their interior.
Both, after their completion by means of the forge stand upright, repulse the north pole
of a magnetic needle with the lower end and attract the south pole, while the upper end
shows itself as the south pole of the magnetic needle. But this is only a latent force;
not even the finest iron particles can be drawn magnetically or held on either end of such
a bar.

Only after this bar of steel is dynamized, rubbing it with a dull file
in one direction, will it become a true active powerful magnet, one able to attract iron
and steel to itself and impart to another bar of steel by mere contact and even some
distance away, magnetic power and this in a higher degree the more it has been rubbed. In
the same way will triturating a medicinal substance and shaking of its solution
(dynamization, potentation) develop the medicinal powers hidden within and manifest them
more and more or if one may say so, spiritualizes the material substance itself.

3

On this account it refers to the increase and stronger
development of their power to cause changes in the health of animals and men if these
natural substances in this improved state, are brought very near to the living sensitive
fibre or come in contact with it (by means of intake or olfaction). Just as a magnetic bar
especially if its magnetic force is increased (dynamized) can show magnetic power only in
a needle of steel whose pole is near or touches it. The steel itself remains unchanged in
the remaining chemical and physical properties and can bring about no changes in other
metals (for instance, in brass), just as little as dynamized medicines can have any action
upon lifeless things.

4

We hear daily how homoeopathic medicinal potencies are called
mere dilutions, when they are the very opposite, i.e., a true opening up of the natural
substances bringing to light and revealing the hidden specific medicinal powers contained
within and brought forth by rubbing and shaking. The aid of a chosen, unmedicinal medium
of attenuation is but a secondary condition.

Simple dilution, for instance, the solution of a grain of salt will
become water, the grain of salt will disappear in the dilution with much water and will
never develop into medicinal salt which by means of our well prepared dynamization, is
raised to most marvellous power.

Thus two drops of the fresh vegetable juice mingled with equal parts of
alcohol are diluted with ninety-eight drops of alcohol and potentized by means of two
succussions, whereby the first development of power is formed and this process is repeated
through twenty-nine more phials, each of which is filled three-quarters full with
ninety-nine drops of alcohol, and each succeeding phial is to be provided with one drop
from the preceding phial (which has already been shaken twice) and is in its turn twice
shaken,1 and in the same manner at last the thirtieth development of
power (potentized decillionth dilution X) which is the one most generally used.

1

In order to maintain a fixed and measured standard for
developing the power of liquid medicines, multiplied experience and careful observation
have led me to adopt two succussions for each phial, in preference to the greater number
formerly employed (by which the medicines were too highly potentized). There are, however,
homoeopathists who carry about with them on their visits to patients homoeopathic
medicines in the fluid state, and who yet assert that they do not become more highly
potentized in the course of time, but they thereby show their want of ability to observe
correctly. I discovered a grain of soda in half an once of water mixed with alcohol in a
phial, which was thereby filled two-thirds full, and shook this solution continuously for
half an hour, and this fluid was in potency and energy equal to the thirtieth development
of power.

In order to best obtain this development of power, a small part of the
substance to be dynamized, say one grain, is triturated for three hours with three times
one hundred grains sugar of milk according to the method described below1
up to the one-millionth part in powder form. For reasons given below (b) one grain of this
powder is dissolved in 500 drops of a mixture of one part of alcohol and four parts of
distilled water, of which one drop is put in a vial. To this are added 100 drops of pure
alcohol2 and given one hundred strong succussions with the hand
against a hard but elastic body.3 This is the medicine in the first
degree of dynamization with which small sugar globules4 may then be
moistened5 and quickly spread on blotting paper to dry and kept in a
well-corked vial with the sign of (I) degree of potency. Only one6
globule of this is taken for further dynamization, put in a second new vial (with a drop a
water in order to dissolve it) and then with 100 powerful succussions.

With this alcoholic medicinal fluid globules are again moistened,
spread upon blotting paper and dried quickly, put into a well-stoppered vial and protected
from heat and sun light and given the sign (II) of the second potency. And in this way the
process is continued until the twenty-ninth is reached. Then with 100 drops of alcohol by
means of 100 succussions, an alcoholic medicinal fluid is formed with which the thirtieth
dynamization degree is given to properly moistened and dried sugar globules.

By means of this manipulation of crude drugs are produced preparations
which only in this way reach the full capacity to forcibly influence the suffering parts
of the sick organism. In this way, by means of similar artificial morbid affection, the
influence of the natural disease on the life principle present within is neutralized. By
means of this mechanical procedure, provided it is carried out regularly according to the
above teaching, a change is effected in the given drug, which in its crude state shows
itself only as material, at times as unmedicinal material but by means of such higher and
higher dynamization, it is changed and subtlized at last into spirit-like7
medicinal power, which, indeed, in itself does not fall within our senses but for which
the medicinally prepared globule, dry, but more so when dissolved in water, becomes the
carrier, and in this condition, manifests the healing power of this invisible force in the
sick body.

1

One-third of one hundred grains sugar of milk is put in a
glazed porcelain mortar, the bottom dulled previously by rubbing it with fine, moist sand.
Upon this powder is put one grain of the powdered drug to be triturated (one drop of
quicksilver, petroleum, etc.). The sugar of milk used for dynamization must be of that
special pure quality that is crystallized on strings and comes to us in the shape of long
bars. For a moment the medicines and powder are mixed with a porcelain spatula and
triturated rather strongly, six to seven minutes, with the pestle rubbed dull, then the
mass is scraped from the bottom of the mortar and from the pestle for three to four
minutes, in order to make it homogeneous. This is followed by triturating it in the same
way 6 - 7 minutes without adding anything more and again scraping 3 - 4 minutes from what
adhered to the mortar and pestle. The second third of the sugar of milk is now added,
mixed with the spatula and again triturated 6 - 7 minutes, followed by the scraping for 3
- 4 minutes and trituration without further addition for 6 - 7 minutes. The last third of
sugar of milk is then added, mixed with the spatula and triturated as before 6 -7 minutes
with most careful scraping together. The powder thus prepared is put in a vial, well
corked, protected from direct sunlight to which the name of the substance and the
designation of the first product marked /100 is given. In order to raise this product to
/10000, one grain of the powdered /100 is mixed with the third part of 100 grains of
powdered sugar of milk and then proceed as before, but every third must be carefully
triturated twice thoroughly each time for 6 -7 minutes and scraped together 3 -4 minutes
before the second and last third of sugar of milk is added. After each third, the same
procedure is taken. When all is finished, the powder is put in a well corked vial and
labelled /10000, i.e., (I), each grain containing 1/1,000,000 the original substance.
Accordingly, such a trituration of the three degrees requires six times six to seven
minutes for triturating and six times 3 -4 minutes for scraping, thus one hour for every
degree. After one hour such trituration of the first degree, each grain will contain
1/000; of the second 1/10,000; and in the third 1/1,000,000 of the drug used.* Mortar and
spatula must be cleaned well before they are used for another medicine. Washed first with
warm water and dried, both mortar and pestle, as well as spatula are then put in a kettle
of boiling water for half an hour. precaution might be used to such an extent as to put
these utensils on a coal fire exposed to a glowing heat.

* These are the three degrees of the dry powder trituration, which if
carried out correctly, will effect a good beginning for the dynamization of the medicinal
substance.

2

The vial used for potentizing is filled two-thirds full.

3

Perhaps on a leather bound book.

4

They are prepared under supervision by the confectioner from
starch and sugar and the small globules freed from fine dusty parts by passing them
through a sieve. Then they are put through a strainer that will permit only 100 to pass
through weighing one grain, the most serviceable size for the needs of a homoeopathic
physician.

5

A small cylindrical vessel shaped like a thimble, made of
glass, porcelain or silver, with a small opening at the bottom in which the globules are
put to be medicated. They are moistened with some of the dynamized medicinal alcohol,
stirred and poured out on blotting paper, in order to dry them quickly.

6

According to first directions, one drop of the liquid of a
lower potency was to be taken to 100 drops of alcohol for higher potentiation. This
proportion of the medicine of attenuation to the medicine that is to be dynamized (100:1)
was found altogether too limited to develop thoroughly and to a high degree the power of
the medicine by means of a number of such succussions without specially using great force
of which wearisome experiments have convinced me.

But if only one such globule be taken, of which 100 weigh one grain,
and dynamize it with 100 drops of alcohol, the proportion of 1 to 50,000 and even greater
will be had, for 500 such globules can hardly absorb one drop, for their saturation. With
this disproportionate higher ratio between medicine and diluting medium many successive
strokes of the vial filled two-thirds with alcohol can produce a much greater development
of power. But with so small a diluting medium as 100 to 1 of the medicine, if many
succussions by means of a powerful machine are forced into it, medicines are then
developed which, especially in the higher degrees of dynamization, act almost immediately,
but with furious, even dangerous violence, especially in weakly patients, without having a
lasting, mild reaction of the vital principle. But the method described by me, on the
contrary, produces medicines of highest development of power and mildest action, which,
however, if well chosen, touches all suffering parts curatively.* In acute fevers, the
small doses of the lowest dynamization degrees of these thus perfected medicinal
preparations, even of medicines of long continued action (for instance, belladonna) may be
repeated in short intervals. In the treatment of chronic diseases, it is best to begin
with the lowest degrees of dynamization and when necessary advance to higher, even more
powerful but mildly acting degrees.

* In very rare cases, notwithstanding almost full recovery of health
and with good vital strength, an old annoying local trouble continuing undisturbed it is
wholly permitted and even indispensably necessary, to administer in increasing doses the
homoeopathic remedy that has proved itself efficacious but potenized to a very high degree
by means of many succussions by hand. Such a local disease will often then disappear in a
wonderful way.

7

This assertion will not appear improbable, if one considers
that by means of this method of dynamization (the preparations thus produced, I have found
after many laborious experiments and counter-experiments, to be the most powerful and at
the same time mildest in action, i.e., as the most perfected) the material part of the
medicine is lessened with each degree of dynamization 50,000 times yet incredibly
increased in power, so that the further dynamization of 125 and 18 ciphers reaches only
the third degree of dynamization. The thirtieth thus progressively prepared would give a
fraction almost impossible to be expressed in numbers. It becomes uncommonly evident that
the material part by means of such dynamization (development of its true, inner medicinal
essence) will ultimately dissolve into its individual spirit-like, (conceptual) essence.
In its crude state therefore, it may be considered to consist really only of this
underdeveloped conceptual essence.

All other substances adapted for medicinal use - except sulphur, which
has of late years been only employed in the form of a highly diluted (X) tincture - as
pure or oxidized and sulphuretted metals and other minerals, petroleum, phosphorus, as
also parts and juices of plants that can only be obtained in the dry state, animal
substances, neutral salts, etc., all these are first to be potentized by trituration for
three hours, up to the millionfold pulverulent attenuation, and of this one grain is to be
dissolved, and brought to the thirtieth development of power through twenty-seven
attenuating phials, in the same manner as the vegetable juices.1

1 As is still more circumstantially described in the prefaces to
Arsenic and Pulsatilla in the Materia Medica Pura.

If the physician prepares his homoeopathic medicines himself, as he
should reasonably do in order to save men from sickness,1 he may use
the fresh plant itself, as but little of the crude article is required, if he does not
need the expressed juice perhaps for purposes of healing. He takes a few grains in a
mortar and with 100 grains sugar of milk three distinct times brings them to the
one-millionth trituration (§ 270) before further potentizing of a small portion of this
by means of shaking is undertaken, a procedure to be observed also with the rest of crude
drugs of either dry or oily nature.

1

Until the State, in the future, after having attained insight
into the indispensability of perfectly prepared homoeopathic medicines, will have them
manufactured by a competent impartial person, in order to give them free of charge to
homoeopathic physicians trained in homoeopathic hospitals, who have been examined
theoretically and practically, and thus legally qualified. The physician may then become
convinced of these divine tools for purposes of healing, but also to give them free of
charge to his patients - rich and poor.

In no case is it requisite to administer more than one single, simple
medicinal substance at one time.1

1 Some homoeopathists have made the experiment, in cases where
they deemed one remedy homoeopathically suitable for one portion of the symptoms of a case
of disease, and a second for another portion, of administering both remedies at the same
time; but I earnestly deprecate such a hazardous experiment, which can never be necessary,
though it may sometimes seem to be of use.

Such a globule,1 placed dry upon the tongue, is
one of the smallest doses for a moderate recent case of illness. Here but few nerves are
touched by the medicine. A similar globule, crushed with some sugar of milk and dissolved
in a good deal of water (§ 247) and stirred well before every administration will produce
a far more powerful medicine for the use of several days. Every dose, no matter how
minute, touches, on the contrary, many nerves.

1

These globules (§ 270) retain their medicinal virtue for many
years, if protected against sunlight and heat.

It is not conceivable how the slightest dubiety could exist as to
whether it was more consistent with nature and more rational to prescribe a single
well-known medicine at one time in a disease, or a mixture of several differently acting
drugs.

In no case under treatment is it necessary and therefore not
permissible to administer to a patient more than one single, simple medicinal substance at
one time. It is inconceivable how the slightest doubt could exist as to whether it was
more consistent with nature and more rational to prescribe a single, simple1
medicine at one time in a disease or a mixture of several differently acting drugs. It is
absolutely not allowed in homoeopathy, the one true, simple and natural art of healing, to
give the patient at one time two different medicinal substance.

1

Two substances, opposite to each other, united into neutral
Natrum and middle salts by chemical affinity in unchangeable proportions, as well as
sulphurated metals found in the earth and those produced by technical art in constant
combining proportions of sulphur and alkaline salts and earths, for instance (natrum
sulph. and calcarea sulph.) as well as those ethers produced by distillation of alcohol
and acids may together with phosphorus be considered as simple medicinal substances by the
homoeopathic physician and used for patients. On the other hand, those extracts obtained
by means of acids of the so-called alkaloids of plants, are exposed to great variety in
their preparation (for instance, chinin, strychnine, morphine), and can, therefore, not be
accepted by the homoeopathic physician as simple medicines, always the same, especially as
he possesses, in the plants themselves, in their natural state (Peruvian bark, nux vomica,
opium) every quality necessary for healing. Moreover, the alkaloids are not the only
constituents of the plants.

As the true physician finds in simple medicines, administered
singly and uncombined, all that he can possibly desire (artificial disease-force which are
able by homoeopathic power completely to overpower, extinguish, and permanently cure
natural diseases), he will, mindful of the wise maxim that it is wrong to attempt to
employ complex means when simple means suffice, never think of giving as a remedy any
but a single, simple medicinal substance; for these reasons also, because even though the
simple medicines were thoroughly proved with respect to their pure peculiar effects on the
unimpaired healthy state of man, it is yet impossible to foresee how two and more
medicinal substances might, when compounded, hinder and alter each other's actions on the
human body; and because, on the other hand, a simple medicinal substance when used in
diseases, the totality of whose symptoms is accurately known, renders efficient aid by
itself alone, if it be homoeopathically selected; and supposing the worst case to happen,
that it was not chosen in strict conformity to similarity of symptoms, and therefore does
no good, it is yet so far useful that it promoted our knowledge of therapeutic agents,
because, by the new symptoms excited by it in such a case, those symptoms which this
medicinal substance had already shown in experiments on the healthy human body are
confirmed, an advantage that is lost by the employment of all compound remedies.1

1 When the rational physician has chosen the perfectly
homoeopathic medicine for the well-considered case of disease and administered it
internally, he will leave to irrational allopathic routine the practice of giving drinks
or fomentations of different plants, of injecting medicated glysters and of rubbing in
this or the other ointment.

The suitableness of a medicine for any given case of disease does
not depend on its accurate homoeopathic selection alone, but likewise on the proper size,
or rather smallness, of the dose. If we give too strong a dose of a medicine which may
have been even quite homoeopathically chosen for the morbid state before us, it must,
notwithstanding the inherent beneficial character of its nature, prove injurious by its
mere magnitude, and by the unnecessary, too strong impression which, by virtue of its
homoeopathic similarity of action, it makes upon the vital force which it attacks and,
through the vital force, upon those parts of the organism which are the most sensitive,
and are already most affected by the natural disease.

For this reason, a medicine, even though it may be homoeopathically
suited to the case of disease, does harm in every dose that is too large, the more harm
the larger the dose, and by the magnitude of the dose it does more harm the greater its
homoeopathicity and the higher the potency1 selected, and it does
much more injury than any equally large dose of a medicine that is unhomoeopathic, and in
no respect adapted (allopathic) to the morbid state; for in the former case the so-called
homoeopathic aggravation (§§157-160) - that is to say, the very analogous medicinal
disease produced by the vital force stirred up by the excessively large dose of medicine,
in the parts of the organism that are most suffering and most irritated by the original
disease - which medicinal disease, had it been of appropriate intensity, would have gently
effected a cure - rises to an injurious height;2 the patient, to be
sure, no longer suffers from the original disease, for that has been homoeopathically
eradicated, but he suffers all the more from the excessive medicinal disease and from
useless exhaustion of his strength.

1

The praise bestowed of late years by some few homoeopathists
on the larger doses is owing to this, either that they chose low dynamizations of the
medicines to be administered, as I myself used to do twenty years ago, from not knowing
any better, or that the medicines selected were not perfectly homoeopathic.

For this reason, a medicine, even though it may be homoeopathically
suited to the case of disease, does harm in every dose that is too large, the more harm
the larger the dose, and by the magnitude of the dose and in strong doses' it does more
harm the greater its homoeopathicity and the higher the potency1
selected, and it does much more injury than any equally large dose of a medicine that is
unhomoeopathic, and in no respect adapted to the morbid state (allopathic).

Too large doses of an accurately chosen homoeopathic medicine, and
especially when frequently repeated, bring about much trouble as a rule. They put the
patient not seldom in danger of life or make this disease almost incurable. They do indeed
extinguish the natural disease so far as the sensation of the life principle is concerned
and the patient no longer suffers from the original disease from the moment the too strong
dose of the homoeopathic medicine acted upon him but he is in consequence more ill with
the similar but more violent medicinal disease which is most difficult to destroy.2

1 The praise bestowed of late years by some homoeopathists on
the larger doses is owing to this, either that they chose low dynamizations of the
medicine to be administered (as I myself used to do twenty years ago, from nor knowing any
better), or that the medicines selected were not homoeopathic and imperfectly prepared by
their manufacturers.

2

Thus, the continuous use of aggressive allopathic large doses
of mercurials against syphilis develops almost incurable maladies, when yet one or several
doses of a mild but active mercurial preparation would certainly have radically cured in a
few days the whole venereal disease, together with the chancre, provided it had not been
destroyed by external measures (as is always done by allopathy). In the same way, the
allopath gives Peruvian bark and quinine in intermittent fever daily in very large doses,
where they are correctly indicated and where one very small dose of a highly potentized
China would unfailingly help (in marsh intermittents and even in persons who were not
affected by any evident psoric disease). A chronic China malady (coupled at the same time
with the development of psora) is produced, which, if it dose not gradually kill the
patient by damaging the internal important vital organs, especially spleen and liver, will
put him, nevertheless suffering for years in a sad state of health. A homoeopathic
antidote for such a misfortune produced by abuse of large doses of homoeopathic remedies
is hardly conceivable.

For the same reason, and because a medicine, provided the dose of
it was sufficiently small, is all the more salutary and almost marvellously efficacious
the more accurately homoeopathic its selection has been, a medicine whose selection has
been accurately homoeopathic must be all the more salutary the more its dose is reduced to
the degree of minuteness appropriate for a gentle remedial effect.

Here the question arises, what is this most suitable degree of
minuteness for sure and gentle remedial effect; how small, in other words, must be the
dose of each individual medicine, homoeopathically selected for a case of disease, to
effect the best cure? To solve this problem, and to determine for every particular
medicine, what dose of it will suffice for homoeopathic therapeutic purposes and yet be so
minute that the gentlest and most rapid cure may be thereby obtained - to solve this
problem is, as may easily be conceived, not the work off theoretical speculation; not by
fine-spun reasoning, not by specious sophistry can we expect to obtain the solution of
this problem. Pure experiment, careful observation, and accurate experience can alone
determine this; and it were absurd to adduce the large doses of unsuitable (allopathic)
medicines of the old system, which do not touch the diseased side of the organism
homoeopathically, but only attack the parts unaffected by the disease, in opposition to
what pure experience pronounces respecting the smallness of the doses required for
homoeopathic cures.

Here the question arises, what is this most suitable degree of
minuteness for sure and gentle remedial effect; how small, in other words, must be the
dose of each individual medicine, homoeopathically selected for a case of disease, to
effect the best cure? To solve this problem, and to determine for every particular
medicine, what dose of it will suffice for homoeopathic therapeutic purposes and yet be so
minute that the gentlest and most rapid cure may be thereby obtained - to solve this
problem is, as may easily be conceived, not the work off theoretical speculation; not by
fine-spun reasoning, not by specious sophistry can we expect to obtain the solution of
this problem. It is just as impossible as to tabulate in advance all imaginable cases.
Pure experiment, careful observation of the sensitiveness of each patient, and accurate
experience can alone determine this; and it were absurd to adduce the large doses of
unsuitable (allopathic) medicines of the old system, which do not touch the diseased side
of the organism homoeopathically, but only attack the parts unaffected by the disease, in
opposition to what pure experience pronounces respecting the smallness of the doses
required for homoeopathic cures.

This pure experience shows UNIVERSALLY, that if the disease do not
manifestly depend on a considerable deterioration of an important viscus (even though it
belong to the chronic and complicated diseases), and if during the treatment all other
alien medicinal influences are kept away from the patients, the dose of the
homoeopathically selected remedy can never be prepared so small that it shall not be
stronger than the natural disease, and shall not be able to overpower, extinguish and cure
it, at least in part as long as it is capable of causing some, though but a slight
preponderance of its own symptoms over those of the disease resembling it (slight
homoeopathic aggravation, (§§ 157-160) immediately after its ingestion.

This pure experience shows UNIVERSALLY, that if the disease do not
manifestly depend on a considerable deterioration of an important viscus (even though it
belong to the chronic and complicated diseases), and if during the treatment all other
alien medicinal influences are kept away from the patients, the dose of the
homoeopathically selected and highly potentized remedy for the beginning of treatment of
an important, especially chronic disease can never be prepared so small that it shall not
be stronger than the natural disease and shall not be able to overpower it, at least in
part and extinguish it from the sensation of the principle of life and thus make a
beginning of a cure.